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June 4 2016
Chroma, Mavia, and Manley have found a Thumper on the body of a Shadow Cultist. Unsure of the device's purpose, they have obtained passage on the airship Everloft to Avania, an island home to shipyards where Manley hopes to find a skilled gnome craftsman who might be able to analyze it. Just as their airship passes over a small island, Bajeisa, an explosion shakes the ship and sets the hull on fire. Chroma saves one of the crew, Dunston, from falling overboard to his death, while Mavia and Manley rush to the cargo hold to retrieve her glider bike. Mavia takes a small gash to the head, but they are successful. Just as the hull is brushing the canopy of the fungal jungle below, Mavia grabs Chroma and shouts at her to hold on. She kicks open the bike's throttle. Hair streaming behind her, she jumps the railing, speeds through the air, and executes a literal perfect side-slide landing atop one of the fungal caps. Meanwhile, Manley uses his mechanical suit to anchor himself against the mast. The ship absorbs most of the impact and breaks apart around him. Of the entire crew, only three survive: Dunston, Ewing, and a third who remains unconscious. Assessing the situation, Manley explores the hull and realizes the ship's battery was sabotaged. Their mysterious thumper is not present among the wreckage. Manley assumes it has been stolen, and that the thief is likely heading to a trading post at the opposite end of the island. He uses a battery and one of the ship's sails to jury-rig a small hovering platform. They load it with one of the injured crew, add some salvaged cargo, and set off into the fungal jungle. Mavia, scouting ahead, loses her balance and falls into a large pit, which turns out to be the top of a tunnel, and an entrance to a Tentacled Termite colony. She lands a few feet away from one. Her attempt to back away quietly fails, and it calls to its nestmates. She scrambles out. It gives chase, but she is able to slice it in half and stuff the entrance with a nearby fungal cap. Unfortunately, she sees other tunnels just like it nearby, and chittering calls echo out of them. Chroma and Manley are tending to the crew's wounds when they hear a shouted cry of "We've got company!" Mavia whirls past them and plants herself atop the hover platform. Chroma and Manley see movement in the undergrowth, closing in. Chroma climbs up one of the giant mushrooms, commanding Zigzag to change into light weapon form, while Manley takes a defensive position. A dozen termites scramble into view. Chroma shouts, "Phospho!" and a blinding flash of light causes the first wave to lose their vision. Manley attempts to shoot at them with his energy cannon, but the bolts miss and two termites latch onto his suit. Chroma orders Zigzag to attack, but the light misses (or misunderstands) and hits the hover platform's battery, knocking it out. One termite manages to jump directly onto Mavia's qiang and scrambles into her face. Shrieking, she flings it away - directly onto Ewing. A slice of her qiang dispatches it but also carves into Ewing's chest. Manley crushes one with his suit's arm. The other clings to his energy cannon. He grabs it and pulls it away, though doing so detaches the cannon's couplings. A massive punt kick sends it flying into the canopy. The remaining termites, seeing three of their number dead, scurry back into the jungle. Facing an immobile platform and injured crewmen, the party decides to make camp. Mavia prepares a dinner from their rations, turning standard reconstituted mushrooms into a tasty ratatouille-like stew that revives everyone's spirits. Manley repairs his suit and manages to get the platform floating again, though it is now lower to the ground and more difficult to handle, which will slow their progress. Chroma takes watch from her perch in a mushroom, and notices a somewhat nearby clearing that contains the bodies of a few dozen crows and nothing else. Curious, she wonders whether to investigate, but a flashing red Zigzag reminds her that venturing out alone isn't safe. Their rest passes without incident, and they rise to figure out the next stage of their journey toward the trading post.